


i’ll be your eyes (i’ll be a lifeline)

by nirav



Series: we are falling but not alone [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, claustrophobia tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 06:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: It was as straightforward a job as they’d had in ages-- get in, get proof and enough money to cover their client, and get the stolen identities to the FBI-- and yet somehow, somehow, Blake finds herself in an office with Yang and six drug cartel members pointing guns at them.Or: Yang gets captured, and nobody knows what to do when they don't have Yang.





	i’ll be your eyes (i’ll be a lifeline)

**Author's Note:**

> this exists entirely because the incomparable asshole [thecousinsdangereux](https://thecousinsdangereux.tumblr.com/) was like "hey remember that episode of leverage where hardison got buried alive? you should write that."

Yang is fidgeting. Her face is blank, her shoulders square and back and more militaristic than Blake’s ever seen them, but her thumb taps slowly, methodically, against her leg. People file by, hands filled with programs and flowers, clothes as somber as their expressions, but Yang’s presence cuts an imposing figure against the slumped shoulders and downturned heads of mourners and draws attention to them all.

“Breathe,” Blake murmurs, pressing a hand against her jaw to cancel the vibrations and keep her words out of the intercoms, so that only Yang can hear her. “You’re attracting attention.”

Yang blinks slowly and her thumb stops moving. 

“I hate these places.” 

“We’re not here long,” Ruby says softly over the comms, her voice heavy. “You can do this, Yang.” She’s a block away in the van, running through the digital background on their targets-- a funeral director and his two sons stealing the identities of the people they bury and stripping all of the money out of their family’s accounts-- while Weiss and Ilia snoop through their office on site and Blake and Yang play their parts as grief-stricken siblings looking to bury their mother.

“Yeah,” Yang mutters. She closes her eyes for a long moment and rubs absently at her right arm and Blake’s fingers twitch, as if to reach for her and the topography of damage on her arm, as if she could calm Yang’s unnerving worry, as if she hasn’t spent the last two years of working with the team and pretending that she can't still feel the way Yang had stiffened and frozen when Blake had made the mistake of touching the scars covering her arm, once and never again.

“You got this?” she says softly, not bothering to hide it from the rest of the team. They’ve all seen the tension that coiled Yang’s entire body tight like a spring the moment Weiss had brought the job to them, the moment _funeral home_ had come up--

_“Is she going to be able to handle this?” It’s Weiss who has the nerve to ask, more than Blake ever would have._

_Ruby stares at the front door swinging shut after Yang’s retreating form and pushes her palms against her eyes, breathes slowly._

_“After her tour ended she-- a lot of her friends died, the first few years back. PTSD and all that. Every other week it felt like she was getting a phone call about someone else dying.” Ruby rubs at her eyes and leans back in her chair. “They survived a lot together, when they were in, and then came home and-- well. She’s the only one left standing.”_

_Blake keeps her focus on her fingernails, her breathing steady, refusing to allow herself to be affected by the confirmation that so much of what she’d assumed about Yang-- the survivor’s guilt, the post-traumatic stress, the way a collection of shattered pieces always lingered in the shadows of every bright smile and easy laugh-- was true._

_“She can sit it out,” Ilia offers. “I--we can make it work.”_

_“Of course,” Weiss says immediately. “She shouldn’t have to--”_

_“She’d hate that even more,” Ruby says, smile thin and hollow and nothing like her usual effervescence. “Not being there for us, not being there for her team? That’s worse than anything.”_

\--and worry had haunted every step they’d all taken, further and further into the con they were planning, tiptoeing around the possibility that even Yang, so full of light and power and strength, could crumble around them.

“I’ve got it,” Yang says, and her breath is so steady, her hands so calm, that Blake stops herself from reaching out to touch her and links her hands together instead. “Let’s take this shithead down.”

* * *

It was as straightforward a job as they’d had in ages-- get in, get proof and enough money to cover their client, and get the stolen identities to the FBI to put the funeral director away-- and yet somehow, _somehow_ , Blake finds herself in an office with Yang and six drug cartel members pointing guns at them.

“This is unexpected,” Yang says cheerfully, even though Blake can feel the casual shift in her weight as she balances more readily on the balls of her feet. “What’s up, guys?”

“You took something that belongs to me,” one of them says, gun held lazily down at his side.

“Technically they belong to a bunch of dead people,” Yang says, clicking her tongue, and Blake bites down on the inside of her cheek to keep from rolling her eyes.

“Where are they?”

“You mean the identities of dead people you’re buying off of a skeezy funeral director?” Blake says. “Sorry, no idea.”

He cocks his gun and swings it up, pointing it at Blake with a grimace. “Then find them, and bring them back to me.”

Tension rolls off of Yang in waves, a different sort than the grief and stress that had weighed her shoulders down for the past weeks, and Blake settles into a more comfortable stance at the familiar feel of Yang at her back and ready to spring into action.

“Here’s an idea,” Blake says conversationally. “What if we _didn’t_ do that and went on our way and promised real nice not to send the FBI after this place.”

One side of his mouth curls up into a snarl and the room’s suddenly filled with movement, Yang shoving Blake out of the way and launching herself at the closest of the gunmen. Blake catches herself and manages to duck under a swinging fist, dodging the hit and slamming her shoe into the back of his knee, just as Yang had taught her. He goes down and she reaches for the gun, for anything to help Yang where she’s already dropped three of them and is working on the next when--

“Enough!” He bellows out, and everyone freezes, Yang pausing and then snapping another punch into the face of the man she had by the collar. He drops and Yang grins, holds her hands up, stands straighter. 

“He’s got a really punchable face, sorry,” Yang says, wholly unapologetic, and winks gratuitously at Blake from the other side of the room.

“You,” he says, pointing his gun at Blake. “You’re going to bring me the identities. Or she--” and he tilts his head towards Yang. “Is going to end up in a bodybag downstairs.”

“Like hell I--”

“Blake,” Yang says quietly, calmly, and it cuts through Blake’s retort like a knife. Yang’s standing carefully still, her hands up and palms out. “Do as he says.”

“What--”

“Blake,” Yang says again, her voice creaking around the word. Her eyes flick towards the enormous bank of windows and then back, wide and level, and Blake turns to see the nose of a rifle pointing at her from a car across the street, a red dot painted on her chest.

“You think you’re fast enough, blondie?” he growls out, and Yang’s shoulders tighten. She keeps her eyes on Blake, her breathing level, and shakes her head.

“She’ll do it,” she says quietly. “And I’ll go with you.” 

One of the last of the gunmen left standing strides over and slams the butt of his gun against the back of Yang’s head, and Blake jerks towards her, stopping only when Yang’s hand flashes up to stop her.

“Don’t,” she says lowly. Her balance wavers momentarily and the second hit drives her to her knees.

“She’s not fighting, stop it!” Blake yells out, rooted to the spot by Yang’s eyes, glazing over with pain and frustration, locked onto her.

The third hit knocks her out and sends her sprawling, and Blake’s fingernails dig into her own hands, her throat aching and chest burning because Yang is the strongest of them all and they _need_ her, on every job, every day, and now she’s unconscious and in danger, all to save Blake.

Blake crumples to the floor when she’s hit too, the butt of a gun rattling her brain in her skull, and she loses consciousness slowly, so slowly, enough that she can see the blurry shapes of them dragging Yang out of the room by her wrists.

* * *

“Blake? Blake!”

That’s Weiss, her voice hitting a particular level of shrill that it only does when she’s scared, and Blake groans in spite of herself, pain radiating out of her head and all the way down to her toes.

“Oh, thank God,” Weiss mumbles when Blake opens her eyes. Her hand hovers over Blake’s cheek, fingers shaking, and she sucks in a loud breath. “Are you--”

“They took Yang,” Blake says. She pushes up to sit upright and groans again when the room tilts around her. “Weiss, they-- she made me stay, they took her--”

“We’re going to find her,” Weiss says grimly. “Her earpiece isn’t working but we _will_ find her. What do they want?”

“The identity paperwork,” Blake groans out. She lets herself be pulled up her to her feet and doesn’t protest when Weiss yanks her into a hug, leaning into it instead and allowing herself just a moment to be terrified, to be injured, to be scared and hurt and held by Weiss. “How long--”

“Ten minutes, maybe,” Weiss says. She pulls back and holds Blake’s head steady, staring hard into her eyes, mouth pressed into a sharp line.

“Come on,” Weiss mutters out, hefting one of Blake’s arms over her shoulder and holding tight around her waist. “Ruby and Ilia are at the loft and trying to track her down.” 

Blake’s hands are shaking as Weiss shoves her into the car, and she presses her palms into her knees and bites down on the inside of her cheek, trying to think like a cartel, to think like someone who would want to hurt people to get what they want, to think like someone who could look at Yang and the unbearable brightness she drags into every room and want to _hurt_ her--

“What happened?” Ruby yanks the door open before Weiss can turn the handle, eyes wide and manic. “Blake, where’s-- what happened?”

Ilia appears at her side, hands tapping nervously against her hips like she always does when she’s worried, and she steps up to Blake’s other side, letting Weiss offload her weight and guiding her over to the couch. Weiss follows and presses a glass of vodka into one hand and a bottle of water into the other.

“Should she really be--”

“Yes,” Blake mutters out, and drains the vodka in one go. It sputters down into her chest and burns, drawing her focus away from the ache in her head, calming her hands minutely. Ruby paces in front of her, hands flying over her tablet.

“Blake, what happened?”

“Give her a minute, Ruby,” Weiss says sharply. 

“My _sister_ is--”

“I know,” Weiss says, so forcefully it nearly makes Ilia fall out of her chair. “But we can’t find her if we’re panicking and Blake has a concussion so just let her _breathe_ for thirty seconds so she can tell us everything coherently”

Blake’s come to terms with Weiss as her friend, her teammate, her _family_ , over the last two years, but she’s never been more grateful for anyone than she is for Weiss Schnee at that precise moment. Weiss’s fingers dig into her shoulder, almost painfully, and Blake discards the glass so she can hold onto it.

“They’re selling the identities off,” Blake says after draining the water bottle. “The funeral home runs their main scam of taking advantage of people in hospice and drains the money out of them, but they’re also running a side business of selling the stolen identities to a drug cartel, presumably for smuggling. A bunch of cartel guys showed up, wanted the paperwork we’d taken. They-- there was someone outside, they had a gun, he--”

“They took Yang as collateral,” Weiss finishes for her. Her voice shakes in a way it hardly ever does, calm barely papering over splinters of rage. 

“ _How_?” Ilia says, shaking her head. “It doesn’t make sense, how can anyone take Yang without--”

“Sniper,” Blake breathes out. Her hands start to shake again. “They had a-- outside, across the street, not even Yang could have stopped them. They--”

“They threatened to shoot you,” Weiss says, eyes widening as she puts the pieces together. “She never would’ve gone with them if they hadn’t threatened one of us.”

“We have to find her,” Ruby says, her voice shaking, and a new twisting pain grips at Blake’s stomach because Ruby could lose her sister, all because of Blake. She’s stopped pacing, but her hands are shaking visibly, and Weiss finally leaves Blake’s side long enough to settle her hands gently on Ruby’s shoulders, holding her steady.

“We will,” Weiss says, sharp and solid as always, and Blake could kiss her for her ability to keep her head. Ruby’s still shaking, but her hands curl around Weiss’s wrists, anchoring herself to Weiss’s calm. “They want the identity paperwork, presumably because they already paid for it.”

“So we give them the damn paperwork,” Blake snaps out, and Ruby and Ilia’s agreements echo in her skull.

“No,” Weiss says quickly. “I mean-- that’s _our_ only leverage and guarantee that they’ll keep her alive. It’s easier for them to clean up that loose end once they have what they want, so we don’t give it to them. We have to track them down--”

Ruby’s phone rings and she nearly falls over digging it out of her pocket. An unknown number flashes on the screen and her thumb skids across it, missing twice before Weiss steadies her hand and swipes across the screen for her.

“Yang?” Ruby blurts out. “Yang, is that--”

“Hey, Rubes.” It comes out weak and shaking, even for being over a speakerphone, and Blake nearly keels over, Ilia’s arm around her shoulder all that keeps her from collapsing off the couch. “Think I’m in a tight spot.”

“Yang, where are you?” Ruby’s voice shakes nearly as much, as if she’s holding back tears, and nausea twists in Blake’s stomach.

“I don’t know,” she says slowly. “I--um. My earpiece is gone, they just left a phone here. Old piece of shit with no GPS.” She sucks in an audible breath. “I-- um, I think I’m in one of the coffins.”

“Shit,” Ruby breathes out for all of them, and Blake stares at Weiss helplessly.

Weiss yanks the phone out of Ruby’s hand and hits the mute button on the phone and turns to Blake sharply. “How much air will she have?”

Blake stares at her, hands starting to shake, because there’s so little she’s ever known about Yang but she knows _enough_ , knows how she always charges into danger ahead of the four of them, knows how she’s always the first one to wake up and knows how all of them take their coffee, knows that whatever it was that destroyed her arm and killed half her black ops team had involved her being pinned inside a truck crushed by shrapnel and that a coffin could hardly be any bigger than that--

“Blake!” Weiss snaps out. “I need you here, okay? Yang needs you _here_. How much air will she have? How long do we have to get to her?”

“I--um.” Blake shakes her head, the pain grounding her, and sucks in a deep breath. “Thirty minutes. Maybe a few more. From when they put her in--”

Weiss nods, short and sharp, and unmutes the line. “Yang, I need you to listen to me,” she says calmly. “And I need you to tell me if you can smell anything, or hear anything. Anything that can tell us where to start.”

There’s nothing but uneven breaths on the line for long seconds and Blake digs her fingernails into her own thigh because Yang is constancy, Yang is solidity, Yang and her unwavering presence are the anchor that holds them all in place.

“Water,” Yang says suddenly. “Running water, there’s-- it came on just for a minute. And stopped. Running water.”

“Sprinklers,” Ilia rushes out, her fingers digging claw-like into Blake’s shoulder. “That has to be sprinklers, right? Short bursts of running water?”

“Sprinklers,” Weiss confirms. “So you’re not very deep. Good.” She stares for a long moment at Blake, and then speaks again. “Ruby, patch her through to Blake’s comm. I need you on something else.”

“Weiss,” Ruby snaps out, and Blake’s fingers curl into fists because Yang needs Ruby the way they all need Yang and there’s no way--

“It’s okay,” Yang rasps out. “I’m okay, Ruby, I promise.” The waver in her voice underscores the lie they all know is there, but Weiss repeats her instructions sharply and suddenly it’s just Blake with Yang’s voice in her ear. She covers her ears, unwilling to put anymore distance between herself and the rest of the team but needing to narrow her focus to Yang, just Yang, lost and alone and too far out of her reach.

“Yang,” she says quietly. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah.” There’s a pause and another wobbling breath. “What’s happening?”

Blake breathes carefully and closes her eyes, listening with one ear as Weiss snaps out questions at Ruby and Ilia, bouncing ideas off of them and eliminating parks and playgrounds. 

“We’re narrowing down places where you could be,” Blake says after a moment. “So we can come dig your dumb self out of the ground.”

“Don’t make me laugh, Belladonna,” Yang says, something that could almost be humor in her voice. “I need the air.”

“Right,” Blake murmurs. She follows Weiss out the door and into the car, listening carefully as best she can about how Yang has to be in a cemetery, how there are four of them nearby, how--

“Blake,” Yang says, voice thick. “I need--can you-- talk to me. Please.”

Blake squeezes her eyes shut, her hand gripping the doorhandle in the car, and presses her free hand against her jaw. “Weiss, can you-- I can’t, she needs--”

“Blake,” Weiss says, a level of deathly calm that Blake’s never seen before, given away only by the way her knuckles are white around the steering wheel. “You have spent the majority of your life crawling around in spaces smaller than that coffin willingly. You know what she needs to keep calm, so _do it_.”

Blake pulls a shaking hand away from her jaw and digs her fingers into her thigh.

“Yang,” she says as evenly as she can. “I need you to focus on your breathing, okay? Put some of that yoga shit to good use.”

“I don’t do yoga,” Yang mutters out.

“Sure you don’t,” Blake says, nearly smiling in spite of herself. “You just have the pants for the aesthetic. Because you’re a basic bitch. But you have to breathe with me, okay? In.” She pulls in a slow, steady breath, as evenly and carefully as she can, praying it’s loud enough for Yang to hear. The earpiece fills with the sound of a ragged inhale. “And out.”

She walks through each breath carefully, refusing to look at her watch because she can’t think about how little time Yang has, can’t think about how they could lose her, can’t think about how _Blake_ could lose her. At her side, Weiss is still scarily quiet, talking through the best way to find Yang, snippets of ideas like _sirens_ and _911_ breaking through Blake’s quiet breathing with Yang.

“How’s it going out there?” Yang says after too many breaths with nothing to say, and Blake presses her lips together, watches as Weiss speaks rapidly into her phone, calling in an emergency to 911.

“We’re gonna steal a cop car,” Blake says, as lightly as she can, because maybe it’ll help. “Something tells me you have experience with that.”

“What are you implying,” Yang gasps out, her voice shaking, and a sniff sounds through the line and lances straight through Blake’s chest. 

“It’s basically a rite of passage, isn’t it?” Blake screws her eyes shut and tilts her head back against the seat, presses her hand against her jaw to keep the sound of her own shaking breaths out of Yang’s ears. Weiss skids the car into a parking spot and Blake follows her out, throwing herself into the passenger seat of the ambulance that’s idling outside of a diner, the EMTs and the cops from the empty cruiser next to it all inside responding to the fake 911 calls Ruby had put in. Weiss puts the ambulance into gear and screams away from the curb, Ruby and Ilia following in the police car.

“We were good kids,” Yang says unevenly. 

“Your sister hacked into the Pentagon when she was _ten_ ,” Blake throws back. “And she’s now stolen a cop car, so you can scratch that off the family bucket list now.”

“How is she?” Yang says, her voice grating over the earpiece, and Blake’s hands shake and she presses them as hard as she can against her knees. She glances over to Weiss, mouths Ruby’s name, swallows the nausea that rises in her stomach when Weiss’s jaw clenches visibly and she doesn’t say anything.

“She’s doing okay,” Blake says, lying as best she can. “Stealing from the cops, breaking all sorts of laws. As you do.”

Weiss points up to the gates of the cemetery they’re closing in on.

“Yang, I need you to listen,” Blake says quickly. “Can you-- I need you to listen for sirens, okay? Tell me when you hear sirens.”

“Sirens?”

“Yang, _listen_ ,” Blake rattles out. They’re almost past the cemetery and Weiss has nearly bent the steering wheel in half. 

“I-- nothing,” Yang says shakily, something that has to be a sob cracking underneath her words. “I--wait. Wait.”

“What is it? What do you hear?” Blake’s hand shoots out against her will and grabs for Weiss’s, breath catching in her chest sharply.

“I hear it,” Yang whispers. 

“Police or ambulance?”

“I-- police,” Yang rushes out. “Police.”

“Ruby, you’re there,” Weiss yells over the comms, and she slams down on the gas in the ambulance. “We’re on our way, look for any fresh dirt.”

“Yang,” Blake says, her hands shaking and twisting around her seatbelt. “Yang, Ruby’s there, Ruby and Ilia, they’re-- we’re going now, we’ll be there soon.”

She glances over at Weiss and finally gives in, taps at her wrist, and has to press a hand over her eyes when Weiss flashes a four at her. 

“I need you to stay calm, okay?” Blake says, as evenly as she can. “Breathe with me, okay?”

“Blake,” Yang says, cracking and shattering around her name. “I can’t-- I can’t breathe anymore.”

“Yang, focus,” Blake snaps, loud enough that Weiss’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. The cemetery is in their sights now, the driveway half-blocked by an SUV and a collection of familiar armed cartel members. Blake glances over to Weiss and her clenched jaw and closes her eyes, leaving it to Weiss to sort out. “Listen to me, will you? For once just _listen_ to me.”

There’s no response, just shaking unsteady breaths, and Blake opens her eyes in time to realize that Weiss is barreling the ambulance straight down the driveway, straight into the crowd of bodies and SUV. She nearly blacks out when the seatbelt catches her, head throbbing and ribs almost surely breaking against the seatbelt.

“Blake?” Yang’s voice stutters and trips over her name, and it snaps Blake back into focus. “Blake, are you-- I need--”

“I’m here,” Blake says sharply. She follows Weiss out of the ambulance, legs shaking and ground tilting under her, and nearly falls over when one of the cartel members, somehow still conscious, grabs for her ankle. Weiss spins around and lands a kick that sends his head snapping back and his hand drops away, limp, from Blake’s ankle. 

“I’m here,” Blake says again. “Listen to me, Yang.” She’s limping, her legs shaking and head spinning from too many hits, her body giving out on her, and she waves Weiss ahead furiously. Ruby and Ilia are barely visible from where they are, digging frantically, and Weiss takes off at a sprint, leaving Blake to pause and lean her hands on her knees. 

“Take in a deep breath and hold it, okay? Biggest breath you can and you keep it in your lungs.” She squeezes her eyes shut and digs her fingernails into her knees. “Yang, listen to me. You’re going to make it through this. You don’t have a _choice_ , because you’re the lynchpin, do you hear me? You’re the glue for this whole team and we _need_ you, Ruby needs you, Weiss and Ilia need you, we--” Her voice cracks and she slams her fist into her own knee. “I need you, Yang Xiao Long. Do you hear me? I need you, because you’re my friend, and I’m not going to lose you. You hear me? Hold your breath because we’re coming for you.”

Something that sounds like a wheeze sounds over the earpiece and it injects fresh energy into Blake’s lungs and legs, and she takes off, sprinting after Weiss and towards where Ruby and ilia are digging. 

“We’ve got you,” she grinds out, a hand pushing against her ribs as she runs, breaths coming in short gasps, no longer able to keep her pulse steady to keep Yang calm because it doesn’t matter now, it doesn’t matter if Yang can conserve any air because there’s nothing left to hold onto. 

“Close your eyes!” Ruby bellows at Yang, loud enough that it stabs through the ache in Blake’s head, and she slams she shovel down and sends splinters of wood flying. Blake stops abruptly still fifteen feet away, and presses a hand over her mouth. There’s nothing coming through the earpiece anymore, and for a split second Blake is sure they’ve lost her, that Yang is gone forever.

Weiss skids down onto her knees half into the hole of dirt next to Ruby, and air vanishes out of Blake’s lungs when they resurface, hauling Yang up. She’s gasping for breath, her whole body trembling, her hair filthy and matted, her entire bold and bright presence reduced to nothing but shaking hands as she nearly collapses into Ruby’s arms.

Blake’s legs finally give up and she slumps against a tree, one hand pushing against her ribs and the other covering her mouth. She stares across the space between them to where Weiss is holding Ruby and Yang as tight as she can, where Ilia’s slumped down, exhausted, over her shovel, and wills her body to stop shaking because they found her. Yang’s still standing, still breathing, there with all of them again. 

Yang lifts her head from Ruby’s shoulder finally, wiping at her eyes with one hand and not giving up on the grip she has on Weiss’s with the other, and stares back at Blake.

* * *

The loft is quiet, quieter than it ever is when they’re all there. Ilia’s on the couch with Weiss, Yang sandwiched between them. She’s freshly showered and wrapped in a blanket, her head tilted down onto Weiss’s shoulder and Weiss’s hand combing absently through her hair, and she has a tight hold on Ilia’s hand. Ruby’s pacing, tablet in hand, tracking down Yang’s earpiece and the cartel members that still have it, muttering quietly and, most likely, sending the entirety of the FBI after them.

Blake holds herself separate, curled into a chair on the opposite end of the living room, as far as humanly possible without leaving the room. 

“Ruby,” Yang says eventually, shattering the silence. Her voice is hoarse, restrained, as if her body still hasn’t realized it can breathe freely again. “Can you just--”

“Almost done,” Ruby says without looking up. “I just need to-- _there_.” She flicks a series of images up onto the enormous computer monitors in front of them all, GPS tracking and a truck in transit and a worrisome glimpse into the inside of the FBI’s computer system, where Ruby’s pulled together an order for an armed raid on the truck. 

“Try and fuck with my sister again, you _dick_ ,” Ruby says viciously. 

“Is that-- Jesus, Ruby,” Weiss says quietly. “With a warning like that the FBI is going to send every SWAT team in the state after them.”

“They put her in a _coffin_ , Weiss,” Ruby says. “A coffin!” She flings her arms out dramatically.

“I always knew you were the scarier one,” Yang croaks out, something close to a smile on her face. She breathes in carefully and leans further into Weiss, letting out a quiet sigh. Blake watches from her spot on the other side of the room as Ruby settles down on the floor in front of Yang, fingers gripping at the loose material of her sweatpants and forehead tilting down to rest against her knee. The shuddering breaths she takes and the way her shoulders shake with them drives Blake out of her seat.

No one sees her as she slides out of the room, disappearing down the hall and away from where the four of them are wrapped around each other, holding onto Yang like she could still disappear. She slides into the dark gym at the end of the hall, the one that she and Yang are the only ones to really use, and holds herself together until she makes it to one of the weight benches and slumps down, curling arounder her damaged ribs and swallowing the ache pushing against the inside of her chest.

A knock sounds on the doorframe, quiet enough that she nearly misses it, and she swipes at her eyes and looks up to find Yang standing there, the lights of the hallway behind her and compressing her silhouette down until she looks half the size Blake’s used to.

“Hey,” Blake says belatedly. “Hi.”

“Can I--” Yang cuts herself off, tugs at the cuffs of her sweatshirt, and pulls in a slow breath before she reaches in and turns on the light to the gym. “Not a super big fan of the dark right now.”

“Of course,” Blake says, too quickly. “Do you-- can I get you anything--”

“I want to talk to you,” Yang says simply. She shuts the door halfway behind her and Blake’s mouth snaps shut. She pushes her hands down onto the bench at her sides, looking down at her knees instead of the way Yang-- _Yang_ , who walks with perfect balance and like she can defy gravity whenever she wants to, light and even and forever intentional with every movement-- takes dragging hesitant steps until she can sit down on the bench at Blake’s side.

Yang’s warm, always, and Blake’s fingers grip tighter to the bench because she’s _tired_ , so impossibly tired, and her ribs ache and her head hurts and Yang is warm and safe and here, right here, and Blake’s never willingly shared a bed in her life but right now nothing in the world appeals more than crashing into a bed with Yang and sleeping for three days straight.

“I have done yoga,” Yang says suddenly, and Blake blinks slowly at her.

“What?”

“You told me to do yoga breathing and I said I didn’t do yoga.”

‘Oh.” Blake blinks owlishly and shakes her head.

“And then you called me a basic bitch,” Yang adds, and she smiles, almost, and even though there’s more shadow than light to her it draws a smile out of Blake as well. Yang leans over and bumps her shoulder against Blake’s gently.

“You’re totally a basic bitch,” Blake mumbles. “I’ve never seen anyone with more Lululemon or Starbucks gift cards.”

“Maybe so,” Yang says with a shrug. “But you still stayed with me today.”

“I,” Blake says slowly. “I wasn’t with you, Yang. You made me watch as they took you away.”

“You were the only reason I lasted as long as I did in that coffin,” Yang says, soft and quiet and so honest it cracks Blake’s chest open. “Ilia’s quiet, Ruby’s so much, all the time, Weiss is too calm, but you-- you kept me breathing. You’re why I was still there when you guys found me.”

She reaches over, hand barely stretching past the drooping cuffs of her sweatshirt, and curls her fingers around Blake’s palm, pulling gently until she gives up her grip on the bench. Yang’s hand is warm, palm covered in calluses and knuckles covered in papery lines of scar tissue, and Blake, after everything that’s happened in the last day, forgets how to breathe.

Yang pulls her hand over into her lap, settling it face-up on her legs and tracing over lifelines absently with her fingertips. 

“I’ve always been okay with small spaces,” she says eventually. “And with the dark. I wouldn’t have lasted as long in the military if I hadn’t, not with what they needed from me.” Her fingers follow lifelines down Blake’s hand, skidding down over the heel of her palm and to the inside of her wrist, tracing a circuit over the delicate veins under her skin, drawing her pulse up to the surface. 

“But today was--different.” Her eyes focus off somewhere on the floor of the gym, her fingers carrying on their path drawing lines along Blake’s palm, and Blake bites down on her lip and stares unashamedly at Yang’s profile. 

“It wasn’t even like when--” she cuts herself off, fingers still gentle on Blake’s hand but her right arm shaking visibly, and Blake turns without meaning to, reaches over with her free arm to lay a hand on Yang’s shoulder. “It wasn’t like when I got hurt. It wasn’t the part where I thought I was going to die that made it so bad. It was knowing that I was _there_ , helpless, and the rest of you were in danger. That I was locked away, with no time, and no way to help.”

“You don’t always have to be the one saving people, you know,” Blake says, hand careful on Yang’s shoulder. “Pretty sure that’s rule number one of being on a team or something.”

“Actually I think rule one is that we don’t give Weiss coffee unless it cost eighteen dollars a cup.” Yang finally looks back over to Blake, something of a smile pulling at one side of her mouth, and Blake can’t help but smile as well.

“Thanks for not hanging up the phone, Blake Belladonna,” Yang says quietly, and she leans over and into Blake’s space, sharing air and sharing warmth, and presses a hand to one of her cheeks and her lips to the other, long and lingering and almost unbearably warm.

“Thanks for holding your breath,” Blake whispers, fingers curling loosely around Yang’s wrist, finding her heartbeat thundering under the skin and holding onto it, holding onto Yang.

Yang clears her throat after a moment that lingers too long and not long enough and pulls back, hands falling into her lap. “I’m going to get some sleep, I think,” she says, almost too loud, and Blake nods absently.

“Almost dying has to be exhausting,” she says automatically, and it startles a laugh out of Yang-- still restrained, still dull, but a start.

“Never gets any easier.” She pushes up to her feet and tucks her hands into her pockets, heaves out a sigh, and Blake’s eyes slide shut to listen to her breathe, even just for a moment. “Night, Blake.”

“Good night,” Blake mumbles, curling her arms around her stomach to keep from reaching out, not ready to let Yang out of her sight yet.

Yang gets nearly to the door before Blake pops up off the bench abruptly. “Yang, wait,” she says, too loud, loud enough that they both wince. 

“I--” Blake starts, and she shoves her hands into her pockets and her focus to the floor between them, Yang’s eyes too bright, too warm, too _everything_ for her to be able to concentrate. “If you, uh-- I know your room is on the alley side, and there aren’t very many streetlights.”

She sucks in a breath and pulls her nerves together, forcing herself to look back up at Yang before she carries on. “If you don’t want to be alone, I can stay with you.”

Yang’s eyebrow lifts, her head tilting, and a smile pulls slowly at her mouth. “Yeah,” she says. “That would be great, actually.”

“Right,” Blake says. “Okay.” She gestures awkwardly towards the door, following Yang’s silent form out and down the hall and into her room.

She’s never seen Yang’s room before, but she barely notices it now, her eyes locked onto the back of Yang’s head as she wiggles out of her sweatshirt and flops down onto the bed with a groan. 

“You coming or not?” she says, muffled, into the pillows.

“Do you want the lights on or off?”

“Kinky, Belladonna,” Yang half-yells into the pillow before sitting up enough to speak normally. “Off is fine. Gotta try it sometime.”

“Right,” Blake mumbles. She shrugs out of her sweater and fumbles for the light switch, unfamiliar with the different landscape of Yang’s room, and picks her way over to the bed. There’s plenty of room for the both of them, and she curls onto her side on the closer edge.

“You’re not very good at this,” Yang mutters. She grabs for Blake’s wrist and pulls, gentle but unwavering, rolling until Blake slides forward and presses against her back. “That’s better.”

“Yeah,” Blake says stupidly. “For sure.”

“Don’t overthink it,” Yang says through a yawn. “Just go with it and cuddle me like a basic bitch.”

“God, you’re never going to forget that, are you?” Blake groans and buries her forehead against Yang’s back, shaking with quiet laughter.

“Not ever,” Yang promises. Her arm falls over Blake’s and holds it tight over her stomach. Blake presses even closer, until she can feel Yang’s heartbeat, and holds on tighter.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Blake says suddenly. Her palm presses flat against Yang’s stomach, fingers spreading to cover as much ground as possible. “I was so scared.”

“Yeah,” Yang says, sucking in a deep breath that moves Blake with her. “Me too. But we’re here now, and we’re good.”

“Yeah,” Blake says, and her palm slides up and presses over Yang’s sternum instead, feeling her heartbeat against her sternum and holding tight. Yang pulls her hand away and presses a kiss to her palm, and Blake kisses the back of her shoulder. “We are.”

  



End file.
